


Elementary Perspective

by distractionpie



Series: JeanMarco Revival 2019 [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Single Parent, Alternate Universe - Teachers, First Meeting, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 18:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21123521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: Lise Bodt has a different great love every week, but when her passion in art doesn't fade like he'd expected, Marco decides it's time to trace this new passion back to its source and learns a few things he wasn't expecting.





	Elementary Perspective

Lise is ten and has a different passion every month.

Marco is used to it.

Mermaids, archery, cooking, frogs; he’s rolled with them all. She loves with all the honesty of a child that hasn’t learned to worry about what other people think of that love, whether it manifests in stacks of library books, rec centre classes, or just rambling conversations, she throws herself into things with an unselfconscious enthusiasm and a certainty that when she smiles the world smiles with her. It’s honestly one of his favourite parts of fatherhood.

And then she starts getting intense about colouring.

He doesn’t realise anything is strange at first, she’s always drawn from time to time, doodles of whatever her current fascination is, but then a week passes and two and Lise is still coming home from school and drawing and Marco can’t help but noticing her subject keeps varying, the pictures aren’t just a manifestation of her latest interest, and then she asks for paints.

There’s no reason she shouldn’t have paint, but she’s always been satisfied with markers before and by now Marco is familiar enough with the signs of one of his daughter’s oncoming obsessions that the escalation raises warning flags.

“Why do you want paints honey?”

“I’m going to be an artist!” is Lise’s bold response, delivered with a grin of childish certainty and delight. “So I need more ways of making art.”

Marco had been afraid of that.

It could be nothing, but he glances over at the fridge, its door adorned with a dozen projects, macaroni art and hand-print turkeys held in place by magnets. He adores everything Lise creates, but there’s no denying from the squiggles she’s inherited her artistic talent, or rather lack of it, from him. Lise is eight — sooner or later she will be disappointed by life, but he had hoped they had more time. He hates the thought she’s going to learn what it is to fail at something she loves, and if she carries this passion into school with her like the others, there’s somebody might take the opportunity to make her feel bad about something which makes her happy and he won’t be able to protect her from that.

But he’s not going to be the guy to crush her dreams, on Saturday he goes down to the craft store and buys a bumper box of paints and grabs a kid-sized easel while he’s there because he wants Lise to enjoy this fun while it lasts.

Lise keeps painting.

Weeks go by and she shows no sign of moving onto a new interest like usual, until:

“Can I have a camera for my birthday?”

“We have a camera?” Marco points out. “I brought it with us when we went to the zoo, remember? There are pictures of you with the elephants.”

“I want my own camera,” Lise says. “That I can take places just in case there’s something to take pictures of. Not only when I know there will be.”

Okay then… Honestly, if she wants to take pictures that badly, she can just claim the camera they already have as her own. After all, Marco has a camera on his phone if he really needs it, but, “You’re into taking photos now.”

“Mr K. says photography is art too,” Lise explains. “But I’m not sure. I want to try it and see.”

Marco frowns. “Mr K?”

Lise gives him a look that reminds him terrifyingly of the way his mom used to look at him when he was Lise’s age and being forgetful. “The art teacher.”

Marco frowns, remembering the last parents teachers night and sitting in the classroom decorated with portraits and fruit illustrations of various quality while a sensible sort of older woman who’d had smiled and said that Lise was always well behaved and a pleasure to have in class and pointedly avoided any mention of ability at all. “What happened to Mrs uh… Bach?”

“Her daughter is having a baby,” Lise says. “So she moved to Stohess to be a grandma. Hopefully she’s good at being a grandma, because Mr K is a way better teacher.”

“Lise!” Marco scolds. “You never had a problem with her before, why so mean now?”

“It’s not mean,” Lise argues. “She was fine. But Mr K is awesome.”

He lets the subject drop, but finds the name on Lise’s class schedule later; an hour on Tuesdays and a double block on Fridays: Art - Room 304 - J. Kirschtien. A new ‘awesome’ art teacher and a sudden ambition to be an artist? Coincidence? Marco thinks not.

A quick call to the school office, and he has an appointment on Wednesday night.

Really, it should have happened sooner. The school has parent-teacher events every term and Marco tries to make it to as many as he can, but as a single parent that just isn’t always possible and so he’d missed the new year introductions in September. He’s just lucky that when Lise was starting school he’d made such a good impression on the administrative staff when sorting out her paperwork, so they’d decided that it’s charming and brave for him to be raising her alone and are eager to help out wherever they can, rather than thinking he’s incompetent and useless as a parent to need special appointments because he can’t make the usual ones.

He shows up at little early, Marco’s personal curse seems to be forever misjudging how much time to leave for traffic and after a childhood of constant lateness he’s picked up the habit of always going for the more generous estimate even if it does leave him hanging around places awkwardly when he shows up too early. He could knock on the classroom door and see about getting the meeting started but he knows he’s already lucky to get an appointment outside of one of the allotted days — he’s not going to push further by interrupting Mr Kirschtien’s break or lesson planning or whatever it is that teachers do when they’re at school after the students have gone home.

There’s another guy hanging around in the corridor, inspecting the faded posters on the wall (they’re all famous historical artists, although Marco can’t help noticing with a frown that they all seem to depict the most conservative brand of classic artist, guys he remembers from lectures in his own school years, which hardly seems in-keeping with the progressive ethos he’d admired when choosing this school) and Marco only contemplates doing the mature thing and pulling out his mobile to deal with work emails before caving into the temptation to watch his companion instead.

Alright, check out his companion. Marco’s a single father, not a priest.

He’s wearing well-fitted jeans and a dark t-shirt that hugs the curve of his waist. Somebody’s much older brother, maybe? The undercut and the piercings that Marco can see glinting in his ear suggest college age and it wasn’t out of the question that somebody Lise’s age could have a sibling so far apart in age, though it’s unlikely. Still, Marco can’t think of any better explanation, there’s something too relaxed in his cocked hips and the thoughtful trail of his fingers across the posters for him to be another visiting parent. A friend or relative of one of the teacher’s perhaps? He can’t imagine Mrs. Bach being friends with anybody who’d look like that, but perhaps Mr Kirschtien had more liberal leanings.

Then he turns and smiles at Marco.

It’s not much of a smile, the forced politeness is obvious and it doesn’t reach his eyes, but Marco wouldn’t expect more from a stranger, especially once with tiny creases between his eyes that suggest his is a face more accustomed to frowning. “Oh!” the man says. “I didn’t see you there. Are you my six-thirty? Lise’s father?”

Marco stares. He is Lise’s dad and it is almost time for the six-thirty appointment he’d scheduled, but something must have gotten confused because otherwise that makes the man standing in front of him Lise’s teacher.

“Mr Kirschtien?” he confirms, hope and dread warring in his stomach…

“Call me Jean,” the man says. “I’m not your teacher after all.”

And thank the wall goddesses of old for that.

Forget art teacher, he is art.

The long lines of his body that Marco had already surreptitiously admired are topped by the most elegant face Marco has ever seen, all sharp lines and high cheeks bones, narrow flat brows cutting across his face to draw attention to clever looking hazel-brown eyes.

Marco had picked the school for its relaxed dress code, didn’t want to send Lise anywhere that might teach her shame or discomfort with her body, but he’s also pretty sure Elementary school teachers aren’t supposed to look this hot.

“I’m on top of my marking, which is a minor miracle as a teacher, so I figured I’d take the time to plan out a fresh display,” Jean explains, waving to the wall. “But I can deal with that later. Come in.”

Marco allows himself to be led into the same small classroom he visited when he met with Lise’s previous art teacher, but he knows it only because he remembers the corridor. Inside the room couldn’t look more different: the whole room is awash with colour, and beside the desk is a sculpture of twisted metal that Marco hopes is bolted down somehow because he’s fairly sure of the of lengths jutting upward is a sword.

Jean walks across the room, bypassing the desk to settle at one of the student desks by the window, the way he has to fold himself into the elementary student sized seat only drawing attention to the length of his legs. Marco nearly trips as he follows.

Idly admiring a stranger he’s never going to see again is one thing, but ogling Lise’s teacher is a total disaster move that Marco should have been more careful than to accidentally make and definitely shouldn’t still be making now, but it would be rude not to look as Marco takes a seat opposite him and when he looks it’s impossible not to appreciate the fine features before him.

“So, you want to talk about Lise?”

“I—yes,” Marco stammers, trying to compose himself and remember his purpose.

Jean raises an eyebrow. There’s a hint of impatience in his features, not a trait that seems well suited to teaching young children, but he waits for Marco nonetheless.

“You’ve awoken a new passion,” Marco blurts out, then feels his face heat. “In Lise!” Who’s motives are undoubtedly a lot purer than his own sudden rush of interest. “I’ve never known her care about art before, but suddenly all she talks about is her ambition to be an artist.”

“Well, good,” Jean replies. “I got into teaching to inspire young people.”

“And that’s great, but I’m a little worried,” Marco admits, drawing in a deep breath. Focusing on his concerns for Lise, because his daughter is far more important than getting distracted by her teachers looks. He came here because there’s a problem, and Marco has never been one of those people who lets anyone get away with acting poorly just because they’re hot and he’s certainly not going to start now. “It’s nice that she has an encouraging teacher, but I feel like you’re just setting her up for disappointment by not also giving an honest assessment of her work.”

Jean’s eyes narrow. “You think I’m being dishonest,” he says, tone noticeably cooler. “About what, exactly?”

“Her hopes.” There he said it. It feels awful to talk so negatively about his daughter, but that’s better than letting somebody else set her up to get hurt. “I’m not one of those parents who is deluded into thinking their child is brilliant at everything. I know what her previous art teacher thought of her abilities, and I don’t think it’s responsible of you to give her deluded ideas of what she can achieve.”

“You don’t think much of your daughter,” Jean accuses.

Marco winces. It’s not true — he thinks the world of Lise, but having hard conversations like this is the best way he can protect her from people who care too much about perfection to appreciate her heart — but he dreads the thought that Jean, that anybody, that one day Lise, could interpret this conversation as insulting to her. Part of being a good father is facing up to the hard parts of life so that his daughter doesn’t have to, though, and so he shrugs. “Some people just aren’t good at art. I’m glad she’s having fun with it now, but she’s only going to get hurt if you tell her she’s talented and then her next teacher has to burst that bubble.”

Jean purses his lips. “Only if her next teacher is terrible.”

It goes against everything in his nature as an optimist to keep fighting this position, there’s nothing he’d like more than to believe that Lise could live the rest of her life surrounded by people who think nothing but the best, but Marco had believed in that sort of thing once and been knocked back hard when reality finally hit and when the world one day disappoints Lise he wants it to be a gentler experience so he sighs and says, “Look, it’s great that you’re the type to actively find the good in something—”

“I’m not,” Jean interrupts. “In fact, I’m tempted to get you to escalate this complaint of yours to Principle Smith just to see the face he makes hearing somebody say that about me, but that would be pretty unfortunate for your daughter, so instead I want you to draw something.”

“What, I’m not good at art,” Marco starts to protest.

“Just give it a try,” Jean insists, lips quirking into a challenging smirk as he slides a paper and a box of coloured pencils across the table and says, “For me.”

Hot-headed has never been a word people have used to describe Marco. Even going through the worst of his teenage years, he’d never been the type to let himself be provoked into fights or goaded into making a fool of himself. But pretty eyes looking up at him from under dark lashes, the plea that’s teased but not quite offered, a mouth on the knife edge of a real smile? For those, he’s the biggest sucker that ever lived.

He picks up a pencil, feeling flustered as he tries to figure out the point of this. Is Jean going to reach over and correct his grip, show him some magic trick that overcame a deep lack of innate talent to make anyone good at drawing?

But Jean just watches and Marco hunches over the table, picking up pencils and sketching lines until the remembered shape of the school building begins to form on the paper. He feels ridiculous, hasn’t drawn anything since doodling in his notebooks at college and those were just shapes and scribbles that nobody other than him would see, but Jean watches like he’s doing something fascinating until embarrassment overwhelms Marco and he sets a pencil down and doesn’t pick up another, deciding the picture is as good as it’s going to get — that he’s spent enough time drawing it and he doesn’t want to put any more time or effort into something that he knows will be a poor end product.

Jean waits a moment, as if giving him the chance to chance is mind, then slides the paper across the table, turning it to face him and examine it with all the serious consideration once might give to a classic, rather than a messy pencil sketch.

Marco stares from Jean to the drawing between them. It’s heavy on the browns, it’s not a colour most people like but Marco had been pulled to the shades and chosen his subject because seeming preoccupied with the school is simpler than acknowledging that he was drawn to those tones because his mind was honey brown eyes and ash shaded hair, and the lines are shaky from where he hasn’t been able to keep calm under Jean’s scrutiny.

“I’m not saying that it’s a masterpiece,” Jean says bluntly. “But I can see where Lise gets her gift from.” It sounds like a backhanded sort of comment, but then he continues in a soft, thoughtful voice, “Ignoring the perspective issues, you’ve still got a good hand, you’re drawing from the wrist not the shoulder but that’s a common bad habit and your good grip has kept your lines strong even if squeezing too hard makes them uneven. Between that and the colour choices… I bet you haven’t drawn since your own school years, but there’s still such a powerful sense of your feeling coming from this image.”

Marco face heats. Damn. His drawing better not be showing Jean what he’s feeling right now, otherwise he’s probably going to get banned from parent-teacher conferences for inappropriate conduct.

“I… seriously?”

“Warm colours, but muted,” Jean explains, tracing over Marco’s scribbled lines. “And your shapes are solid but loose. You’re frustrated but you’re not negative or angry, you want a good outcome…”

“Sorry, are you a psychic now?” Marco blurts out and Jean laughs.

With his shitty drawing between them, Marco’s expecting to feel laughed at, but a warmth has returned to Jean’s eyes like they’re in on a joke together rather than Marco being wrong-footed at every turn by a man who is nothing like any of his expectations coming into this meeting.

“Anybody can be taught to copy from life if they’re willing to put the time in,” Jean explains and some of Marco’s scepticism must show because he smirks a little and says, “A lot of time in some cases, trust me I would know; but that’s just technical drawing. Art is about creativity and emotion, that comes from the self and is far harder to hone, but you’ve got good feeling in this drawing and Lise has an artist’s instincts. I’m not surprised it hasn’t been noticed before, the last teacher here was very into life drawing, but where Lise really shines is at abstraction.”

Marco frowns, suddenly feeling like maybe he’s been being mocked this whole time. “Isn’t that just messy art?”

“Urgh, no,” Jean unfolds himself from the chair, walking over to the desk and leaning over to grab a sheet of paper. “I… oh, give me a minute, I put all these damn Monet essays on top of it.”

There’s a tiny shimmy to his hips as he stretches to move a pile of papers out of his way and Marco gulps. He should probably take advantage of Jean’s moment of distraction to pull himself together. But god, if Jean looks like that when he teaches, what the hell happens if he’s actually trying to look attractive?

He’s even less composed than ever when Jean returns to the table, placing another artwork between them, this time in paint.

“Look at this,” he demands, “Tell me what you see.”

The paper is a swirling mess of colour, lines swooping wildly across the sheet. There’s no form to it at all, he can’t even begin to pick out shapes from the chaos. “It’s just scribbles,” Marco observes. “Colourful scribbles.”

“But what does it make you think of?” Jean presses. “How do you feel?”

Confused, is the first answer that enters Marco’s head, but then he looks harder, trying to find some meaning in the madness. “It’s… there’s too much on the page and it’s kind of overwhelming,” he admits. “I guess there’s a kind of form to those shapes in the middle, a building maybe, but it’s lost in all the other lines and kind of distorted from… sorry, that’s stupid, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be seeing.”

But when he looks up, Jean is smiling, and it’s not forced this time, not at all. Instead, it’s the sort of brilliant smile that adults too rarely gave, unfiltered and filled with nothing but earnest delight that crinkles his eyes as the corners and turns the sharp lines of his face from attractive to beautiful and throws Marco’s pulse into double-time.

“Now turn it over.”

Marco flips the page. There’s writing on the back.

“First day back at school,” it reads, in Lise’s blocky handwriting. “Everything is busy and different.”

“It’s abstract, but it conveyed a meaning to you.” Jean looks like a magician that’s just pulled off a trick for the ages as he says it, but Marco isn’t sure he’s convinced.

“That’s kind of a stretch, and even if I go with it, so what if I think like my daughter?” he says. “That’s not all that surprising.”

“You aren’t the only one to see the meaning in this picture, I knew even before I read her caption and when other students looked at it they saw similar things. The colours, the lines, they speak to something,” Jean insists.

“I… and you think that’s special?” Marco asks. Could he really have been wrong this whole time about Lise’s hopes being doomed?

“I know it is. When I ask students to paint a feeling I’m only trying to introduce the concept of art as expression rather than depiction,” Jean says, “The pieces are personal to them rather than for an audience, I don’t want them to worry about interpretation, but, in the case of Lise’s art, her meaning is conveyed so powerfully it’s hard not to ignore.”

Oh.

Marco loves his daughter, but, when most people compliment her, the words they pick are ‘spirited’ and ‘lively’ and he can hear the double meaning behind all of them, knows that people see her brightness and want it tamed, but Jean speaks with easy clarity, thoughtlessly certain that she’s powerful and talented and special. Lisa had called him awesome and Marco had thought little of it because Lise had bestowed that same honorific on cupcakes and temporary tattoos and a snail she’d seen crawling up a wall once but now he looks at Jean and the only word he has to describe the feeling flowing through him is awe.

“Oh,” he says aloud and something soft flits across Jean’s face.

“Yeah, so… uh, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” he says. “And that’s my professional opinion talking. But if you wanted to, we could schedule a meeting to review, before the next parent-teacher conferences.”

It’s tempting, achingly so, but he really doesn’t have any other concerns about Lise and he doesn’t want to give the impression he doesn’t trust Jean’s judgement just as an excuse to see him again.

“I wouldn’t want to waste your work time,” Marco says. “You’re amazing. I mean, everything you said is amazing. I’m not worried at all now.”

Jean’s low chuckle does nothing to make Marco less flustered. “It could be in a less official capacity,” he suggests.

For a moment Marco is flummoxed, Jean’s interest in seeing him again seems at odds with his confidence in Lise but then Marco looks at him, looks past cut-glass cheekbones and lips that look like they were made for sin and once again remembers that he’s a single parent not a priest and it’s been a while but he can’t believe he didn’t see sooner that there’s an entirely unprofessional interest burning in Jean’s eyes.

He blushes. “I…” There’s definitely a flirtation in Jean’s words, but Marco’s sure it would be seriously inappropriate to go on a date with Lise’s teacher. It would explain why Jean is being so indirect with his offer, but should he really be offering at all? “That sounds good. But there wouldn’t be an issue? With?” he waves a hand to indicate the classroom and Jean’s job.

Jean grins and shrugs. “Lise will be graduating to middle school next year. I’m sure you want to be prepared.”

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with getting to know the guy better and if something were to happen with her ex-teacher that wouldn’t be so unethical. It’s already fall, next summer wouldn’t be such a long wait, not for Marco who hasn’t had a date in an embarrassing length of time. And if Jean is offering then clearly he’s not averse to taking it slow, even if anyone who looks like that must have more immediate options, which is flattering in itself.

“I… yes,” Marco says. “I think I’d like that.”

“Well then, it’s a d—” Jean pauses, biting his lip.

It’s a good look on him and Marco is already wondering what other circumstances he might be able to get Jean to do that in even as he says, “A totally ethically sound parent-teacher meeting. At the metro gallery?” he suggests. “After all, I’ve a lot to learn.”

“The gallery sounds good,” Jean agrees. “Though if you want to learn about art, it will definitely have to be more than one meeting. There’s a lot to cover.”

Marco smiles. “I think I’m okay with that.”


End file.
